The captain had hoped to see Shirley and Burke before he left Paris, but that was now impossible, and, on his way to his hotel, after breakfasting at the Hotel Grenade, he telegraphed to them to come to him in London. He had just sent his telegram when he was touched on the arm, and, turning, saw standing by him two police officers. Their manner was very civil, but they promptly informed him, the speaker using very fair English, that he must accompany them to the presence of a police magistrate.

The captain was astounded. The officers could or would give him no information in regard to the charge against him, or whether it was a charge at all. They only said that he must come with them, and that everything would be explained at the police station. The captain's brow grew black. What this meant he could not imagine, but he had no time to waste in imaginations. It would be foolish to demand explanations of the officers, or to ask to see the warrant for their action. He would not understand French warrants, and the quicker he went to the magistrate and found out what this thing meant, the better. He only asked time to send a telegram to Mr. Wraxton, urging him to attend him instantly at the police station, and then he went with the officers.

On the way, Captain Horn turned over matters in his mind. He could think of no cause for this detention, except it might be something which had turned up in connection with his possession of the treasure, or perhaps the entrance of the Arato, without papers, at the French port. But anything of this kind Wraxton could settle as soon as he could be made acquainted with it. The only real trouble was that he was to be married at four o'clock, and it was now nearly two.

At the police station, Captain Horn met with a fresh annoyance. The magistrate was occupied with important business and could not attend to him at present. This made the captain very impatient, and he sent message after message to the magistrate, but to no avail. And Wraxton did not come. In fact, it was too soon to expect him.

The magistrate had good reason for delay. He did not wish to have anything to do with the gentleman who had been taken in custody until his accuser, Banker by name, had been brought to this station from his place of confinement, where he was now held under a serious charge.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, twenty-five minutes, passed, and the magistrate did not appear. Wraxton did not come. The captain had never been so fiercely impatient. He did not know to whom to apply in this serious emergency. He did not wish Edna to know of his trouble until he found out the nature of it, and if he sent word to the legation, he was afraid that the news would speedily reach her. Wraxton was his man, whatever the charge might be. He would be his security for any amount which might be named, and the business might be settled afterwards, if, indeed, it were not all a mistake of some sort.

But Wraxton did not appear. Suddenly the captain thought of one man who might be of service to him in this emergency. There was no time for delay. Some one must come, and come quickly, who could identify him, and the only man he could think of was Professor Barre, Ralph's tutor. He had met that gentleman the evening before. He could vouch for him, and he could certainly be trusted not to alarm Edna unnecessarily. He believed the professor could be found at the hotel, and he instantly sent a messenger to him with a note.

It took a good deal of time to bring the prisoner Banker to the station, and Professor Barre arrived there before him. The professor was amazed to find Captain Horn under arrest, and unable to give any reason for this state of things. But it was not long before the magistrate appeared, and it so happened that he was acquainted with Barre, who was a well-known man in Paris, and, after glancing at the captain, he addressed himself to the professor, speaking in French. The latter immediately inquired the nature of the charges against Captain Horn, using the same language.

"Ah! you know him?" said the magistrate. "He has been accused of being the leader of a band of outlaws—a man who has committed murders and outrages without number, one who should not be suffered to go at large, one who should be confined until the authorities of Peru, where his crimes were committed, have been notified."

The professor stared, but could not comprehend what he had heard.

"What is it?" inquired Captain Horn. "Can you not speak English?"

No, this Parisian magistrate could not speak English, but the professor explained the charge.

"It is the greatest absurdity!" exclaimed the captain. "Ralph told me that a man, evidently once one of that band of outlaws in Peru, had been arrested for assaulting Cheditafa, and this charge must be part of his scheme of vengeance for that arrest. I could instantly prove everything that is necessary to know about me if my banker, Mr. Wraxton, were here. I have sent for him, but he has not come. I have not a moment to waste discussing this matter." The captain gazed anxiously toward the door, and for a few moments the three men stood in silence.

The situation was a peculiar one. The professor thought of sending to the Hotel Grenade, but he hesitated. He said to himself: "The lady's testimony would be of no avail. If he is the man the bandit says he is, of course she does not know it. His conduct has been very strange, and for a long time she certainly knew very little about him. I don't see how even his banker could become surety for him if he were here, and he doesn't seem inclined to come. Anybody may have a bank-account."

The professor stood looking on the ground. The captain looked at him, and, by that power to read the thoughts of others which an important emergency often gives to a man, he read, or believed he did, the thoughts of Barre. He did not blame the man for his doubts. Any one might have such doubts. A stranger coming to France with a cargo of gold must expect suspicion, and here was more—a definite charge.

At this moment there came a message from the banking house: Mr. Wraxton had gone to Brussels that morning. Fuguet did not live in Paris, and the captain had never seen him. There were clerks whom he had met in Marseilles, but, of course, they could only say that he was the man known as Captain Horn.

The captain ground his teeth, and then, suddenly turning, he interrupted the conversation between the magistrate and Barre. He addressed the latter and asked, "Will you tell me what this officer has been saying about me?"

"He says," answered Barre, "that he believes you know nobody in Paris except the party at the Hotel Grenade, and that, of course, you may have deceived them in regard to your identity—that they have been here a long time, and you have been absent, and you have not been referred to by them, which seems strange."

"Has he not found out that Wraxton knows me?"

"He says," answered Barre, "that you have not visited that banking house since you came to Paris, and that seems strange also. Every traveller goes to his banker as soon as he arrives."

"I did not need to go there," said the captain. "I was occupied with other matters. I had just met my wife after a long absence."

"I don't wonder," said the professor, bowing, "that your time was occupied. It is very unfortunate that your banker cannot come to you or send."

The captain did not answer. This professor doubted him, and why should he not? As the captain considered the case, it grew more and more serious. That his marriage should be delayed on account of such a preposterous and outrageous charge against him was bad enough. It would be a terrible blow to Edna. For, although he knew that she would believe in him, she could not deny, if she were questioned, that in this age of mail and telegraph facilities she had not heard from him for nearly a year, and it would be hard for her to prove that he had not deceived her. But the most unfortunate thing of all was the meeting with the London lawyers the next day. These men were engaged in settling a very important question regarding the ownership of the treasure he had brought to France, and his claims upon it, and if they should hear that he had been charged with being the captain of a band of murderers and robbers, they might well have their suspicions of the truth of his story of the treasure. In fact, everything might be lost, and the affair might end by his being sent a prisoner to Peru, to have the case investigated there. What might happen then was too terrible to think of. He turned abruptly to the professor.

"I see that you don't believe in me," he said, "but I see that you are a man, and I believe in you. You are acquainted with this magistrate. Use your influence with him to have this matter settled quickly. Do as much as that for me."

"What is it that you ask me to do?" said the other.

"It is this," replied the captain. "I have never seen this man who says he was a member of the Rackbirds' band. In fact, I never saw any of those wretches except dead ones. He has never met me. He knows nothing about me. His charge is simply a piece of revenge. The only connection he can make between me and the Rackbirds is that he knew two negroes were once the servants of his band, and that they are now the servants of my wife. Having never seen me, he cannot know me. Please ask the magistrate to send for some other men in plain clothes to come into this room, and then let the prisoner be brought here, and asked to point out the man he charges with the crime of being the captain of the Rackbirds."

The professor's face brightened, and without answer he turned to the magistrate, and laid this proposition before him. The officer shook his head. This would be a very irregular method of procedure. There were formalities which should not be set aside. The deposition of Banker should be taken before witnesses. But the professor was interested in Captain Horn's proposed plan. In an emergency of the sort, when time was so valuable, he thought it should be tried before anything else was done. He talked very earnestly to the magistrate, who at last yielded.

In a few minutes three respectable men were brought in from outside, and then a policeman was sent for Banker.

When that individual entered the waiting-room, his eyes ran rapidly over the company assembled there. After the first glance, he believed that he had never seen one of them before. But he said nothing; he waited to hear what would be said to him. This was said quickly. Banker spoke French, and the magistrate addressed him directly.

"In this room," he said, "stands the man you have accused as a robber and a murderer, as the captain of the band to which you admit you once belonged. Point him out immediately."

Banker's heart was not in the habit of sinking, but it went down a little now. Could it be possible that any one there had ever led him to deeds of violence and blood? He looked again at each man in the room, very carefully this time. Of course, that rascal Raminez would not come to Paris without disguising himself, and no disguise could be so effectual as the garb of a gentleman. But if Raminez were there, he should not escape him by any such tricks. Banker half shut his eyes, and again went over every countenance. Suddenly he smiled.

"My captain," he said presently, "is not dressed exactly as he was when I last saw him. He is in good clothes now, and that made it a little hard for me to recognize him at first. But there is no mistaking his nose and his eyebrows. I know him as well as if we had been drinking together last night. There he stands!" And, with his right arm stretched out, he pointed directly to Professor Barre.

At these words there was a general start, and the face of the magistrate grew scarlet with anger. As for the professor himself, he knit his brows, and looked at Banker in amazement.

"You scoundrel! You liar! You beast!" cried the officer. "To accuse this well-known and honorable gentleman, and say that he is a leader of a band of robbers! You are an impostor, a villain, and if you had been confronted with this other gentleman alone, you would have sworn that he was a bandit chief!"

Banker made no answer, but still kept his eyes fixed upon the professor. Now Captain Horn spoke: "That fellow had to say something, and he made a very wild guess of it," he said to Barre. "I think the matter may now be considered settled. Will you suggest as much to the magistrate? Truly, I have not a moment to spare."

Banker listened attentively to these words, and his eyes sparkled.

"You needn't try any of your tricks on me, you scoundrel Raminez," he said, shaking his fist at the professor. "I know you. I know you better than I did when I first spoke. If you wanted to escape me, you ought to have shaved off your eyebrows when you trimmed your hair and your beard. But I will be after you yet. The tales you have told here won't help you."

"Take him away!" shouted the magistrate. "He is a fiend!"

Banker was hurried from the room by two policemen.

To the profuse apologies of the magistrate Captain Horn had no time to listen; he accepted what he heard of them as a matter of course, and only remarked that, as he was not the man against whom the charges had been brought, he must hurry away to attend to a most important appointment. The professor went with him into the street.

"Sir," said the captain, addressing Barre, "you have been of the most important service to me, and I heartily acknowledge the obligation. Had it not been that you were good enough to exert your influence with the magistrate, that rascal would have sworn through thick and thin that I had been his captain."

Then, looking at his watch, he said, "It is twenty-five minutes to four. I shall take a cab and go directly to the legation. I was on my way to my hotel, but there is no time for that now," and, after shaking hands with the professor, he hailed a cab.

Captain Horn reached the legation but a little while after the party from the Hotel Grenade had arrived, and in due time he stood up beside Edna in one of the parlors of the mansion, and he and she were united in marriage by the American minister. The services were very simple, but the congratulations of the little company assembled could not have been more earnest and heartfelt.

"Now," said Mrs. Cliff, in the ear of Edna, "if we knew that that gold was all to be sunk in the ocean to-morrow, we still ought to be the happiest people on earth."

She was a true woman, Mrs. Cliff, and at that moment she meant what she said.

It had been arranged that the whole party should return to the Hotel Grenade, and from there the newly married couple should start for the train which would take them to Calais; and, as he left the legation promptly, the captain had time to send to his own hotel for his effects. The direct transition from the police station to the bridal altar had interfered with his ante-hymeneal preparations, but the captain was accustomed to interference with preparations, and had long learned to dispense with them when occasion required.

"I don't believe," said the minister's wife to her husband, when the bridal party had left, "that you ever before married such a handsome couple."

"The fact is," said he, "that I never before saw standing together such a fine specimen of a man and such a beautiful, glowing, radiant woman."

"I don't see why you need say that," said she, quickly. "You and I stood up together."

"Yes," he replied, with a smile, "but I wasn't a spectator."



CHAPTER LI

BANKER DOES SOME IMPORTANT BUSINESS

When Banker went back to the prison cell, he was still firmly convinced that he had been overreached by his former captain, Raminez; and, although he knew it not, there were good reasons for his convictions. Often had he noticed, in the Rackbirds' camp, a peculiar form of the eyebrows which surmounted the slender, slightly aquiline nose of his chief. Whenever Raminez was anxious, or beginning to be angered, his brow would slightly knit, and the ends of his eyebrows would approach each other, curling upward and outward as they did so. This was an action of the eyebrows which was peculiar to the Darcias of Granada, from which family the professor's father had taken a wife, and had brought her to Paris. A sister of this wife had afterwards married a Spanish gentleman named Blanquote, whose second son, having fallen into disgrace in Spain, had gone to America, where he changed his name to Raminez, and performed a number of discreditable deeds, among which was the deception of several of his discreditable comrades in regard to his family. They could not help knowing that he came from Spain, and he made them all believe that his real name was Raminez. There had been three of them, besides Banker, who had made it the object of their lives to wait for the opportunity to obtain blackmail from his family, by threatened declarations of his deeds.

This most eminent scoundrel, whose bones now lay at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, had inherited from his grandfather that same trick of the eyebrows above his thin and slightly aquiline nose which Banker had observed upon the countenance of the professor in the police station, and who had inherited it from the same Spanish gentleman.

The next day Banker received a visitor. It was Professor Barre. As this gentleman entered the cell, followed by two guards, who remained near the door, Banker looked up in amazement. He had expected a message, but had not dreamed that he should see the man himself.

"Captain," he exclaimed, as he sprang to his feet, "this is truly good of you. I see you are the same old trump as ever, and do not bear malice." He spoke in Spanish, for such had been the language in common use in camp.

The professor paid no attention to these words. "I came here," he said, "to demand of you why you made that absurd and malicious charge against me the other day. Such charges are not passed over in France, but I will give you a chance to explain yourself."

Banker looked at him admiringly. "He plays the part well," he said to himself. "He is a great gun. There is no use of my charging against him. I will not try it, but I shall let him see where I stand."

"Captain," said he, "I have nothing to explain, except that I was stirred up a good deal and lost my temper. I oughtn't to have made that charge against you. Of course, it could not be of any good to me, and I am perfectly ready to meet you on level ground. I will take back everything I have already said, and, if necessary, I will prove that I made a mistake and never saw you before, and I only ask in return that you get me out of this and give me enough to make me comfortable. That won't take much, you know, and you seem to be in first-class condition these days. There! I have put it to you fair and square, and saved you the trouble of making me any offers. You stand by me, and I'll stand by you. I am ready to swear until I am black in the face that you never were in Peru, and that I never saw you until the other day, when I made that mistake about you on account of the queer fashion of your eyebrows, which looked just like those of a man who really had been my captain, and that I now see you are two entirely different men. I will make a good tale of it, captain, and I will stick to it—you can rely on that. By all the saints, I hope those two fellows at the door don't understand Spanish!"

The professor had made himself sure that the guards who accompanied him spoke nothing but French. Without referring to Banker's proposed bargain, he said to him, "Was the captain of the bandits under whom you served a Spaniard?"

"Yes, you were a Spaniard," said Banker.

"From what part of Spain did he come?"

"You let out several times that you once lived in Granada."

"What was that captain's real name?" asked the professor.

"Your name was Raminez—unless, indeed," and here his face clouded a little, "unless, indeed, you tricked us. But I have pumped you well on that point, and, drunk or sober, it was always Raminez."

"Raminez, then, a Spaniard of my appearance," said the professor, "was your captain when you were in a band called the Rackbirds, which had its rendezvous on the coast of Peru?"

"Yes, you were all that," said Banker.

"Very well, then," said Barre. "I have nothing more to say to you at present," and he turned and left the cell. The guards followed, and the door was closed.

Banker remained dumb with amazement. When he had regained his power of thought and speech, he fell into a state of savage fury, which could be equalled by nothing living, except, perhaps, by a trapped wildcat, and among his objurgations, as he strode up and down his cell, the most prominent referred to the new and incomprehensible trick which this prince of human devils had just played upon him. That he had been talking to his old captain he did not doubt for a moment, and that that captain had again got the better of him he doubted no less.

It may be stated here that, the evening before, the professor had had a long talk with Ralph regarding the Rackbirds and their camp. Professor Barre had heard something of the matter before, but many of the details were new to him.

When Ralph left him, the professor gave himself up to reflections upon what he had heard, and he gradually came to believe that there might be some reason for his identification as the bandit captain by the man Banker.

For five or six years there had been inquiries on foot concerning the second son of Senor Blanquote of Granada, whose elder brother had died without heirs, and who, if now living, would inherit Blanquote's estates. It was known that this man had led a wild and disgraceful career, and it was also ascertained that he had gone to America, and had been known on the Isthmus of Panama and elsewhere by the name of Raminez. Furthermore, Professor Barre had been frequently told by his mother that when he was a boy she had noticed, while on a visit to Spain, that he and this cousin very much resembled each other.

It is not necessary to follow out the legal steps and inquiries, based upon the information which he had had from Ralph and from Banker, which were now made by the professor. It is sufficient to state that he was ultimately able to prove that the Rackbird chief known as Raminez was, in reality, Tomaso Blanquote, that he had perished on the coast of Peru, and that he, the professor, was legal heir to the Blanquote estates.

Barre had not been able to lead his pupil to as high a place in the temple of knowledge as he had hoped, but, through his acquaintance with that pupil, he himself had become possessed of a castle in Spain.



CHAPTER LII

THE CAPTAIN TAKES HIS STAND

It was now July, and the captain and Edna had returned to Paris. The world had been very beautiful during their travels in England, and although the weather was beginning to be warm, the world was very beautiful in Paris. In fact, to these two it would have been beautiful almost anywhere. Even the desolate and arid coast of Peru would have been to them as though it were green with herbage and bright with flowers.

The captain's affairs were not yet definitely arranged, for the final settlement would depend upon negotiations which would require time, but there was never in the world a man more thoroughly satisfied than he. And whatever happened, he had enough; and he had Edna. His lawyers had made a thorough investigation into the matter of his rights to the treasure he had discovered and brought to Europe, and they had come to a conclusion which satisfied them. This decision was based upon equity and upon the laws and usages regarding treasure-trove.

The old Roman law upon the subject, still adhered to by some of the Latin countries of Europe, gave half of a discovered treasure to the finder, and half to the crown or state, and it was considered that a good legal stand could be taken in the present instance upon the application of this ancient law to a country now governed by the descendants of Spaniards.

Whether or not the present government of Peru, if the matter should be submitted to it, would take this view of the case, was a subject of conjecture, of course, but the captain's counsel strongly advised him to take position upon the ground that he was entitled to half the treasure. Under present circumstances, when Captain Horn was so well prepared to maintain his rights, it was thought that the Peruvian authorities might easily be made to see the advisability of accepting a great advantage freely offered, instead of endeavoring to obtain a greater advantage, in regard to which it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to legally prove anything or to claim anything.

Therefore, it was advised that a commission should be sent to Lima to open negotiations upon the subject, with instructions to make no admissions in regard to the amount of the treasure, its present places of deposit, or other particulars, until the Peruvian government should consent to a satisfactory arrangement.

To this plan Captain Horn consented, determining, however, that, if the negotiations of his commission should succeed, he would stipulate that at least one half the sum paid to Peru should be devoted to the advantage of the native inhabitants of that country, to the establishment of schools, hospitals, libraries, and benefactions of the kind. If the commission should not succeed, he would then attend to the matter in his own way.

Thus, no matter what happened, he would still insist upon his claim to one fifth of the total amount as his pay for the discovery of the treasure, and in this claim his lawyers assured him he could be fully secured.

Other matters were in a fair way of settlement. The captain had made Shirley and Burke his agents through whom he would distribute to the heirs of the crew of the Castor their share of the treasure which had been apportioned to them, and the two sailors had already gone to America upon this mission. How to dispose of the Arato had been a difficult question, upon which the captain had taken legal advice. That she had started out from Valparaiso with a piratical crew, that those pirates had made an attack upon him and his men, and that, in self-defence, he had exterminated them, made no difference in his mind, or that of his counsellors, as to the right of the owners of the vessel to the return of their property. But a return of the vessel itself would be difficult and hazardous. Whoever took it to Valparaiso would be subject to legal inquiry as to the fate of the men who had hired it, and it would be, indeed, cruel and unjust to send out a crew in this vessel, knowing that they would be arrested when they arrived in port. Consequently, he determined to sell the Arato, and to add to the amount obtained what might be considered proper on account of her detention, and to send this sum to Valparaiso, to be paid to the owners of the Arato.

The thoughts of all our party were now turned toward America. As time went on, the captain and Edna might have homes in different parts of the world, but their first home was to be in their native land.

Mrs. Cliff was wild to reach her house, that she might touch it with the magician's wand of which she was now the possessor, that she might touch not only it, but that she might touch and transform the whole of Plainton, and, more than all, that with it she might touch and transform herself. She had bought all she wanted. Paris had yielded to her everything she asked of it, and no ship could sail too fast which should carry her across the ocean.

The negroes were all attached to the captain's domestic family. Maka and Cheditafa were not such proficient attendants as the captain might have employed, but he desired to have these two near him, and intended to keep them there as long as they would stay. Although Mok and the three other Africans had much to learn in regard to the duties of domestic servants, there would always be plenty of people to teach them.

* * * * *

In his prison cell Banker sat, lay down, or walked about, cursing his fate and wondering what was meant by the last dodge of that rascal Raminez. He never found out precisely, but he did find out that the visit of Professor Barre to his cell had been of service to him.

That gentleman, when he became certain that he should so greatly profit by the fact that an ex-brigand had pointed him out as an ex-captain of brigands, had determined to do what he could for the fellow who had unconsciously rendered him the service. So he employed a lawyer to attend to Banker's case, and as it was not difficult to prove that the accused had not even touched Cheditafa, but had only threatened to maltreat him, and that the fight which caused his arrest was really begun by Mok, it was not thought necessary to inflict a very heavy punishment. In fact, it was suggested in the court that it was Mok who should be put on trial.

So Banker went for a short term to prison, where he worked hard and earned his living, and when he came out he thought it well to leave Paris, and he never found out the nature of the trick which he supposed his old chief had played upon him.

The trial of Banker delayed the homeward journey of Captain Horn and his party, for Cheditafa and Mok were needed as witnesses, but did not delay it long. It was early in August, when the danger from floating icebergs had almost passed, and when an ocean journey is generally most pleasant, that nine happy people sailed from Havre for New York. Captain Horn and Edna had not yet fully planned their future life, but they knew that they had enough money to allow them to select any sphere of life toward which ordinary human ambitions would be apt to point, and if they never received another bar of the unapportioned treasure, they would not only be preeminently satisfied with what fortune had done for them, but would be relieved of the great responsibilities which greater fortune must bring with it.

As for Mrs. Cliff, her mind was so full of plans for the benefit of her native town that she could talk and think of nothing else, and could scarcely be induced to take notice of a spouting whale, which was engaging the attention of all the passengers and the crew.

The negroes were perfectly content. They were accustomed to the sea, and did not mind the motion of the vessel. They had but little money in their pockets, and had no reason to expect they would ever have much more, but they knew that as long as they lived they would have everything that they wanted, that the captain thought was good for them, and to a higher earthly paradise their souls did not aspire. Cheditafa would serve his mistress, Maka would serve the captain, and Mok would wear fine clothes and serve his young master Ralph, whenever, haply, he should have the chance.

As for Inkspot, he doubted whether or not he should ever have all the whiskey he wanted, but he had heard that in the United States that delectable fluid was very plentiful, and he thought that perhaps in that blessed country that blessed beverage might not produce the undesirable effects which followed its unrestricted use in other lands.



CHAPTER LIII

A LITTLE GLEAM AFAR

It was late in the autumn of that year, and upon a lonely moor in Scotland, that a poor old woman stood shivering in the cold wind. She was outside of a miserable little hut, in the doorway of which stood two men.

For five or six years she had lived alone in that little hut.

It was a very poor place, but it kept out the wind and the rain and the snow, and it was a home to her, and for the greater part of these years in which she had lived there alone, she had received, at irregular and sometimes long intervals, sums of money, often very small and never large, from her son, who was a sailorman upon seas of which she did not even know the name.

But for many months no money had come from this wandering son, and it was very little that she had been able to earn. Sometimes she might have starved, had it not been for the charity of others almost as poor as she. As for rent, it had been due for a long time, and at last it had been due so long that her landlord felt that further forbearance would be not only unprofitable, but that it would serve as a bad example to his other tenants. Consequently, he had given orders to eject the old woman from her hut. She was now a pauper, and there were places where paupers would be taken care of.

The old woman stood sadly shivering. Her poor old eyes, a little dimmed with tears, were directed southward toward the far-away vanishing-point of the rough and narrow road which meandered over the moor and lost itself among the hills.

She was waiting for the arrival of a cart which a poor neighbor had promised to borrow, to take her and her few belongings to the nearest village, where there was a good road over which she might walk to a place where paupers were taken care of. A narrow stream, which roared and rushed around or over many a rock, ran at several points close to the road, and, swelled by heavy rains, had overflowed it to the depth of a foot or more. The old woman and the two men in the doorway of the hut stood and waited for the cart to come.

As they waited, heavy clouds began to rise in the north, and there was already a drizzle of rain. At last they saw a little black spot upon the road, which soon proved to be a cart drawn by a rough pony. On it came, until they could almost hear it splashing through the water where the stream had passed its bounds, or rattling over the rough stones in other places. But, to their surprise, there were two persons in the cart. Perhaps the boy Sawney had with him a traveller who was on his way north.

This was true. Sawney had picked up a traveller who was glad to find a conveyance going across the moor to his destination. This man was a quick-moving person in a heavy waterproof coat with its collar turned up over his ears.

As soon as the cart stopped, near the hut, he jumped down and approached the two men in the doorway.

"Is that the widow McLeish?" he said, pointing to the old woman.

They assured him that he was correct, and he approached her.

"You are Mrs. Margaret McLeish?" said he.

She looked at him in a vague sort of way and nodded. "That's me," said she. "Is it pay for the cart you're after? If that's it, I must walk."

"Had you a son, Mrs. McLeish?" said the man.

"Ay," said she, and her face brightened a little.

"And what was his name?"

"Andy," was the answer.

"And his calling?"

"A sailorman."

"Well, then," said the traveller in the waterproof, "there is no doubt that you are the person I came here to see. I was told I should find you here, and here you are. I may as well tell you at once, Mrs. McLeish, that your son is dead."

"That is no news," she answered. "I knew that he must be dead."

"But I didn't come here only to tell you that. There is money coming to you through him—enough to make you comfortable for the rest of your life."

"Money!" exclaimed the old woman. "To me?"

The two men who had been standing in the doorway of the hut drew near, and Sawney jumped down from the cart. The announcement made by the traveller was very interesting.

"Yes," said the man in the waterproof, pulling his collar up a little higher, for the rain was increasing, "you are to have one hundred and four pounds a year, Mrs. McLeish, and that's two pounds a week, you know, and you will have it as long as you live."

"Two pounds a week!" cried the old woman, her eyes shining out of her weazened old face like two grouse eggs in a nest. "From my Andy?"

"Yes, from your son," said the traveller. And as the rain was now much more than a drizzle, and as the wind was cold, he made his tale as short as possible.

He told her that her son had died far away in South America, and, from what he had gained there, one hundred and four pounds a year would be coming to her, and that she might rely on this as long as she lived. He did not state—for he was not acquainted with all the facts—that Shirley and Burke, when they were in San Francisco hunting up the heirs of the Castor's crew, had come upon traces of the A. McLeish whose body they had found in the desert, lying flat on its back, with a bag of gold clasped to its breast—that they had discovered, by means of the agent through whom McLeish had been in the habit of forwarding money to his mother, the address of the old woman, and, without saying anything to Captain Horn, they had determined to do something for her.

The fact that they had profited by the gold her son had carried away from the cave, was the main reason for this resolution, and although, as Shirley said, it might appear that the Scotch sailor was a thief, it was true, after all, he had as much right to a part of the gold he had taken as Captain Horn could have. Therefore, as they had possessed themselves of his treasure, they thought it but right that they should provide for his mother. So they bought an annuity for her in Edinburgh, thinking this better than sending her the total amount which they considered to be her share, not knowing what manner of woman she might be, and they arranged that an agent should be sent to look her up, and announce to her her good fortune. It had taken a long time to attend to all these matters, and it was now late in the autumn.

"You must not stand out in the rain, Mrs. McLeish," said one of the men, and he urged her to come back into the hut. He said he would build a fire for her, and she and the gentleman from Edinburgh could sit down and talk over matters. No doubt there would be some money in hand, he said, out of which the rent could be paid, and, even if this should not be the case, he knew the landlord would be willing to wait a little under the circumstances.

"Is there money in hand for me?" asked the old woman.

"Yes," said the traveller. "The annuity was to begin with October, and it is now the first of November, so there is eight pounds due to you."

"Eight pounds!" she exclaimed, after a moment's thought. "It must be more than that. There's thirty-one days in October!"

"That's all right, Mrs. McLeish," said the traveller. "I will pay you the right amount. But I really think you had better come into your house, for it is going to be a bad afternoon, and I must get away as soon as I can. I will go, as I came, in the cart, for you won't want it now."

Mrs. McLeish stood up as straight as she could, and glanced from the traveller to the two men who had put her out of her home. Then, in the strongest terms her native Gaelic would afford, she addressed these two men. She assured them that, sooner than enter that contemptible little hut again, she would sleep out on the bare moor. She told them to go to their master and tell him that she did not want his house, and that he could live in it himself, if he chose—that she was going in the cart to Killimontrick, and she would take lodgings in the inn there until she could get a house fit for the habitation of the mother of a man like her son Andy; and that if their master had anything to say about the rent that was due, they could tell him that he had satisfied himself by turning her out of her home, and if he wanted anything more, he could whistle for it, or, if he didn't choose to do that, he could send his factor to whistle for it in the main street of Killimontrick.

"Come, Sawney boy, put my two bundles in the cart, and then help me in. The gentleman will drive, and I'll sit on the seat beside him, and you can sit behind in the straw, and—you're sure it's two pounds a week, sir?" she said to the traveller, who told her that she was right, and then she continued to Sawney, "I'll make your mother a present which will help the poor old thing through the winter, and I'm sure she needs it."

With a heavier load than he had brought, the pony's head was turned homeward, and the cart rattled away over the rough stones, and splashed through the water on the roadway, and in the dark cloud which hung over the highest mountain beyond the moor, there came a little glint of lighter sky, as if some lustre from the Incas' gold had penetrated even into this gloomy region.

THE END